“Effort is visible in the action movement of a worker, or a dancer, and it is audible in song or speech,” Laban observes in Mastery of Movement. “The fact that effort and its various shadings can not only be seen and heard, but also imagined, is of great importance for their representation by the actor-dancer.”
Awakening the imagination is an important part of enriching one’s dynamic range. Laban draws a close link between imagination and playing. During play, he explains, the child experiments with all imaginable situations — offense, defence, ambush, ruse, flight, fear — searching for “the best possible effort combination for each occasion.” He adds, in children, “we call it play; in adult people we call it acting and dancing.”
Effort patterns become habits as one matures, Laban notes, and that is why young humans “have a much more varied scale of effort capacities at their disposal than their elders.” This statement reminds me of Isadora Duncan’s observation that most people resort to a set of habits, and “with these few stereotyped gestures, their whole lives are passed without once suspecting the world of dance which they are missing.”
Revitalize your own dynamic range and stimulate your movement imagination in the forthcoming Red Thread workshop, “Expanding the Dynamosphere,” July 22-23, in New York City.